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Abstract

Educational management has become more varied and complex in terms of

the theory than ever. Theorists in educational management area currently

attempt to give an identity to educational management as an independent

field and promote status of this field in comparison with other fields in

management area. In the current work, Tony Bush's classification for

educational management theories, conceptual pluralism, leadership abilities,

leadership and roles, transformational leadership and transactional

leadership are addressed. Leithwood's theories in educational leadership,

transformational leadership, leadership traits influence on learning and

leadership culture and theory are also discussed. Finally, Kowalski's views,

Distributed leadership and conflict management in distributed leadership are

investigated.

Keywords: Educational Leadership, Educational Management, Theory

1.Introduction

Educational management is a social process which coordinates and organizes all human resources by

application of technical, scientific, and artistic skills and helps achieving educational goals by fulfillment of

logical personal and collective needs of the teachers, students, and the staffs .according to Alaghemand,

management is developing and preserving such environment in which individuals are able act effectively and

efficiently to achieve specific goals. CambleWilner considers educational management and leadership as a

process aiding improvement of education and calls any action which steps forward the teacher as educational

leadership. Management is a science and utilizes scientific theories, knowledge, and principles. Management is

a technique; i.e. it includes practical abilities which mainly refer for occupational environmental and

professional aspects. Generally speaking, management skill means gaining sophistication required to apply

knowledge, the art and technique of management which is acquired throughrepetition and practice and training.

What is management skill in the school as an educational organization? What are goals of an educational

organization? Educational organization's goals enerally include development of self-leadership, cognitive and

personality development of the student, creating a continuous learning and application of knowledge to serve

society and reform.

Aiding achievement of education goals, establishing coordination among all resources and activities of the

educational organization and helping improvement and modification of the education flow, helping

organization members in better understanding of the goals, guiding and supporting organization's members,

creating opportunity for creativity, understanding the needs and problem solving, aiding discovery and

occurrence of talents of the students are among basic goals of educational management in school.

Education organization's goals are wide with various aspects. It does not bring in quick outcome and

result.Sense of responsibility, duty, work ethics, etc. is highly important in the organization and lead to more

competition. Education is associated to the beliefs and values and it is regarded as a social activity. Its working

ground is a social, educational, and cultural affair. In a social activity it is not possible to recognize the

deficiencies properly and it needs time. For example, if you give a directive to the principal or teachers, they

can act according to their own standards. In this case, the task of principal is heavier because the shortcomings

cannot be properly identified.

2.Theory and Practice in Educational Management in Bush's Perspective

Educational Management and Leadership

Azam Ashouri*1

1Administration of Sherafate Eftekhar Guidance School, District 1 of Arak's Ministry of Education, Arak, Iran.

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Educational management is a theoretical and practical area related to the educational organizations. Of course,

considering various logical perspectives in this regard, there is no single comprehensive definition. Instead of

defining educational management, Bush (2003) refers to five major functions of educational management:

- Setting goals (direction, goals, objectives)

- Planning for achievement of the position

- Organizing resources (staff, time, facilities, equipment)

- Inhibiting the process (assessment of success and the selection and planning reform)

- Adjusting and improving organizational measures

Bush's Classification of Educational Management Theories

Bush (2003) classified management theories and leadership theories into five major models. As observed in

Table 1, management models are classified into five classes; formal, political, collegial, subjective and

ambiguity- cultural models, and classified leadership models into five models, managerial, participative,

transactional, postmodern and contingency - moral.

Table 1. Bush's Classification of educational management and leadership theories

Management Model Leadership Model

Formal Managerial

Collegial Participative

Political Transactional

Subjective Postmodern

ambiguity- cultural contingency – moral

These models will be described in the following.

2.1.Formal Models

These models include theories which emphasize formal and structural elements of the organizations. Formal

models assume that the organizations are hierarchies in which managers are the rational tools for realization of

predetermined organizational goals. In these models, the managers obtain their authorities through formal

positions. The major features of these models include:

- They tend to treat organizations as systems.

- They adhere to the formal structures and hierarchies.

- Managerial decision making is done through the logical processes (Bush, 2003; Bush, 2007).

2.2.Collegial Models

These models cover the theories which emphasize participatory and collaborative power and decision making.

In these models, the organization adopts policies and decisions through discussion which leads to collective

agreement (Bush, 2003; Bush, 2007).

2.3.Political Models

Political models include theories which describe decision making as a bargaining process. The main emphasis

in these models is on distribution of power, influence, bargaining and negotiation between interest groups.

Thus, conflict is inevitable. These models assume that the policy and decision making emerges through Process

of negotiation and bargaining. In addition that conflict and differences are considered as natural, the power is in

hands of the stakeholder parties rather than formal leaders (Bush 2003; Bush, 2007).

2.4.Subjective Models

Subjective models mostly emphasize individuals rather than the whole organization or its units. This approach

suggests that each individual has selective mentality and perception about the organization. There are different

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meanings for situations and events for the individuals in the organizations. Organizations are regarded as

complex units in this theory which contain various meaning and perceptions of the individuals. In this theory,

organizations are social constructions which are developed from interaction of the individuals. They reflect

individuals' values and beliefs rather than reflecting realities presented in the formal models (Bush, 2003; Bush,

2007).

2.5.Ambiguity Model/Cultural Model

Ambiguity models emphasize uncertainty and unpredictability in the organization. These theories assume that

organizational goals are problematic and these organizations have problem in prioritizing the goals. Decision

making is done in an unpredictable environment and assumption of the ambiguity models is that

unpredictability and turmoil is dominant in the organizations. There is no transparency in the field of

organizational goals and their processes are incomprehensible. Ambiguity models were mostly emerged by

American theorists of the 1970s. (Bush, 2008).

Leadership models which are corresponding to the managerial models are discussed in this section:

2.6.Managerial Leadership

This type of leadership theories are most similar to the formal models, in which functions, tasks, and behaviors

are emphasized. In addition, it is assumed that behavior of the organization's members is subject to the logic and

rationality. Authority in this type of leadership originates from formal and hierarchical positions (Bush, 2008;

Bush, 2007).

2.7.Participative Leadership

Participative leadership provides participation and collaboration opportunities for the individuals and receive

input from the organization's members. These models encourage group members to participation. Such

approach causes that group members feel they are involved in the working process leading to increasing their

motivation and creativity.

2.8.Transactional Leadership

The main focus in this type of leadership is on the process of transaction between the leader and follower.

Leader and follower may influence each other according to the benefit they receive from mutual transaction. In

other words, leaders give what the followers want and they expect their followers fulfill their demands.

2.9.Postmodern Leadership

Bush (2007) refers to main features of the postmodernism school in educational management:

1- In postmodernism, beliefs and perceptions of the organization's members are mainly focused rather than

organizational or group level interests. Dealing with the individuals instead of the organization itself is the main

difference between this school and other ones.

2- Postmodernism is focused on various meanings of the different phenomena and events for the

individuals present in the organization. Thus, it stresses interpretation of the individuals' personal behaviors

rather than the situations and phenomena.

3- Different meanings of the individuals from different situations are influenced by the individuals' values,

experiences, and background. Hence, interpretations of a specific situation are influenced by the beliefs of the

individuals in the organization.

4- In this school, the structure is mainly constructed by the human interactions rather than being a fixed

and predetermined phenomenon. Organizational charts which may be salient feature of the other schools, is

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considered a fake thing in this school which lacks capability of predicting individuals' behavior. Thus, instead

of focus on the structure, behaviors and their processes are focused in this school.

5- This school emphasizes personal goals and denies organizational goals. The organizations are

constructed by the members' interactions which naturally create an assumption. Thus, individuals are the

ultimate goal, not the organizations and their goals.

3.Educational Leadership in Leithwood's Perspective

The most common conceptualization about educational leadership is related to Hollinger (2003) which suggests

three aspects for this type of leadership: Defining the school's mission, curriculum management, and

strengthening the positive atmosphere of learning at the school level. Hollinger shows ten functions of an

educational manager. Findings indicate a few number of the managers in real world achieve educational

leadership. The problem with educational leadership is that the manager is not an educational expert in most

schools. In addition, there are managers who consider their role as an administrative role and thus they distance

from the class environment deliberately. In most cases, the managers are less specialized than the teachers

under their supervision. Considering the fact that administrative authority of the managers is very limited due to

having intermediate management position, this concept gets more complex. The final authority and power is in

the hand of regional and district top management in most educational systems. The reality in the educational

systems is that managers are put in between expectations of the teachers, parents and top management team and

social members in terms of policy. The main challenge for most managers is dealing with numerous

stakeholders of the educational system so that they have to create a balance among diverse and often conflicting

demands of different social groups. Delegation of authority and decentralization deviates management attention

away from the technical core of schools. Many school managers have been so soaked in the daily managerial

and administrative tasks of the schools which rarely have time for leadership in the field of teaching and

learning.

Although the main leadership functions are leading and ability to influence, different application of these

functions leads to success or failure of the leadership in schools. Differences between successful and

unsuccessful managers depend on the leadership preferences or styles, organizational environment conditions,

internal processes of the leaders (cognitive processes, attitudes, values and beliefs), cultural norms and

expectations of the leader. Many scholars attempt to depict successful and effective aspects within the models

(Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins, 2008). Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins (2008) classify main activities of the

educational leadership in three classes including:

- Setting Directions

The major aspect of educational leadership is helping members of the group to develop a shared understanding

about the organization and its goals which promotes sense of purposefulness and having ideals for them.

Significance of setting necessary and consecutive directions by the leaders is often stressed in the goal-oriented

theories in the field of human motivation. According to these theories, individuals are stimulated for goals

which are compelling, challenging but achievable (Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins, 2008).

- Developing People

Although clear and compelling organizational directions cause arousal of people for fulfillment, these directions

are not the sufficient condition for determining the duties and job description and eventually achieving

organizational goals. Nurturing the capabilities is the prerequisite of the staff productivity and motivation for

realization of the goals (Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins, 2008).

- Redesigning the Organization

Successful educational managers continuously develop their school as an effective organization so that they

improve performance of the teachers, students, and managers. This group of activities of the educational leaders

was developed under influence of organizational learning and professional learning theory to help students'

learning and professional promotion of the teachers. This group of tasks for educational leaders reflects the fact

that organizational culture and structures should facilitate work of organization's members and flexibility of the

structures should be coordinated to the changing nature of schools' needs (Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins,

2008). Leithwood et al. also classified roles of educational leaders. These roles include: Capturing people’s

attention, Capacity building, Pushing the implications of state policies into schools and classrooms, activities

related to leaders policy making, Creating and sustaining a competitive school, Empowering others to make

significant decisions, Providing instructional guidance, defining and applying strategic programs for

improvement of the schools. Descriptions provided by Leithwood for these roles are given in below:

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- Capturing people’s attention

Students and teachers often show less attention to new activities and programs and usually they are informed

about these programs gradually, which influence generally their activities. Thus, regional leaders should capture

attention of the teachers and students in various ways. When a change is being occurred with new standards,

one of the strategies which regional leaders can utilize is using formative and summative evaluation from the

students according to the new standards, since such strategy cause managers and parents pay adequate attention

to fulfilling requirements of the program (Leithwood and Riehl, 2003).

- Capacity building

Although evaluations capture people's attention, useful changes require smart response to the conflicts and

problems which occur within emergence of the changes. Smart reaction for the regional leaders is developing a

Strong, native, systematic and professional program (Leithwood and Riehl, 2003).

- Pushing the implications of state policies into schools and classrooms

Dependence of the schools to some regional policies along with macro policies cause that the schools put their

goals in line with the regional goals. Educational leaders adopt needs, expectations and policies of the

stakeholders and the region, and include these needs and expectations in the curriculum and educational

programs and are continuously accountable toward them (Leithwoodand Earl, 2009).

- Activities related to leaders' policy making

Various forms of national and regional policies require appropriate leadership activities for applying and

promoting them. In such conditions, the educational leaders are accountable toward national and regional

policies and they should provide necessary feedbacks continuously for the policy makers (Leithwood, 2008).

- Creating and sustaining a competitive school

This group of activities is crucial for the educational leaders of the schools which care for competition in

educational markets, attracting talented students, and gaining high ranks in regional and national schools. In

such circumstances, educational leaders improve their schools' competitive advantages and use successful

experiences of the leading schools (Leithwood and Earl, 2009).

- Empowering others to make significant decisions

Educational leaders play significant role in giving freedom of action to teachers, making their job meaningful,

fostering a sense of competence and ability to influence. With empowerment the teachers will feel they have

necessary freedom and authority in making decisions in different situations. Information and knowledge share

in empowerment of the teachers in line with organizational performance is significant in empowerment process

and it is necessary that the teachers obtain required information which is basis for their decisions (Leithwood,

2008).

- Providing instructional guidance

This group of educational leaders' roles is critical for improving learning in the students. Some activities which

can be conducted by the educational leader for providing instructional guidance include: Evaluation of training

activities of the teachers, adopting educational quality promotion strategies, developing professional standards,

providing feedback to teachers and students and preparing curricula and training programs (Leithwood, 2008).

- Defining and applying strategic programs for improvement of the schools

Educational leaders should have plans for improvement of the schools. Thus, having technical abilities for

developing useful plans and applying them in the schools are other roles of educational leaders (Leithwood,

2008).

4.Distributive Leadership in Kowalski's Perspective

Human relationships such as teamwork, participation, empowerment, risk taking, and a minor monitor on the

other are focused in distributive leadership. In this view, the school's leadership does not command and order,

rather it does the work through others and sharing power with them and provides information and data in the

form of plans, operation and working procedures of the school for individuals in the school. This style is mainly

focused on participatory and shared experiences throughout the organization. In distributive leadership,

leadership tasks are conducted by the leading teachers, the school's board of trustee, or the students, and even

some grounds are provided for the students and they are trusted so that they direct the classroom and learning

activities as a teacher (Fusarelli, Kowalskiand Petersen, 2011).

In distributive leadership paradigm, increasing power of the students and teachers is clear. Leadership

distributive responsibilities lead to improving education, creating trust norms, trust, enhancing cooperation and

supporting the development of teachers. distributive leadership in school provides affective support for the

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teacher and directly improves his performance. Distributing leadership process among the teachers and other

stakeholders cause sense of belonging and thus it leads to occupational improvement and organizational

commitment (Kowalski, 2006).Distribution of the roles and responsibilities in the school leads to empowerment

of the individuals and thus it leads to high Commitment and job performance of teachers. Distributive

leadership may bring in improvement in occupational performance and professional and organizational

commitment; however, other factors and variables in the school as well as demographic variables including

leadership team size, age, gender, level of leadership experience, and experience level of teachers may influence

job performance, organizational commitment and organizational effectiveness (Kowalski &Sweetland, 2005).

Kowalski (2006) considers distributive leadership model in the school as a way to develop democracy in the

schools. In this type of leadership, participating people who are influenced by the decisions is considered as a

basic right. It is a principle which is the founder of modern and traditional democracy in the schools. Under

such leadership, members of the organization are regarded as the citizens who are commonly responsible and

accountable in the activities. Such leadership style creates a learning and democratic society in which the power

is shared and there is a share belief for team work to achieve a common good (Fusarelli, Kowalskiand

Petersen).

Using view of scholars in this field, Fusarelli, Kowalskiand Petersen (2011) describe roles of teachers in

Distributive Leadership style:

1. Leading teachers provide leadership opportunities for their colleagues and student; the teachers act as

coach or facilitator and may provide feedbacks for the students.

2. The teachers perform leadership tasks and functions inside and outside the school; leadership duties

may include teaching or research roles;

3. Leading teachers guide participate in decision making within and outside the school. Teachers may be

served in the school's committees and associations.

The teacher with leadership role feel higher sense of belonging to the school and it leads to increased

motivation, professionalism and professional and organizational commitment in them. When leadership

experiences of the teachers increase they gain various benefits including teacher effectiveness, improved

academic performance, influencing other teachers, responsiveness, and durability of the teacher in school.

Thus, distributive leadership creates unique, responsive and highly participatory democracy. Active

participation is the main element of the healthy democracy in schools. Organizational democracy refers

generally to a system of management in which the organization is directed by the members who constitute its

majority. Democracy perspective in the organizations regards reduction of the power within different levels of

the communities and organizations as optimal. This perspective emphasizes mental criteria and values in

democratic workplaces, which are created through the participation ((Fusarelli, Kowalskiand Petersen, 2005).

5.Conflict Management in Distributive Leadership

Distribution and democratic decision making does not mean that stakeholders will accept all decisions and there

shall be no conflict. Admission of decisions depends on the fact that the conflict arising between individuals

and groups is managed and resolved. When there is a conflict, reasons and basis of the conflict should be

discussed freely and openly through effective communication. Effective schools usually have effective conflict

management systems which are designed for directing tensions at the channels that lead to beneficial outcomes.

Fusarelli, Kowalskiand Petersen (2011) proposed five main components of such system in Fig. 1.

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Fig 1. Effective conflict management system

Broad Scope: conflict management system of the school should have broad scope and it should not be parochial

and it should be able to solve conflict at any scope.

Open Culture: The organizational culture must be open to the agreements and disagreements (oppositions)and

looking at conflict as inevitable.

Open Communication: lines of communication should be open and allow employees to have access to the

respective people at the desired time.

Integrated System: Interconnected system should provide several options for conflict resolution, not only

trusting just one possible solution.

Support Structures: the school should have appropriate support system which is capable of effective conflict

management in daily activities of the school (Fusarelli, Kowalskiand Petersen, 2011).

Kowalski (2009) considers successful conflict management in distributive leadership as dependent on three

main principles including:

- Information Sharing: Sharing the information cause that all needed information is accessible for the

stakeholders and they can make informed decisions.

- Transparency: it includes offering evidence related to conflicts to the stakeholders, because they can

participate better in decision making if they have appropriate information.

- Addressing Collective Goals: it includes focus on shared points of the stakeholders. Higher emphasis on the

common points and finding shared goals of the stakeholders helps that partial oppositions are ignored for the

sake of the larger goals in conflicts.

6.Discussion and Conclusion

In educational management field, only one specific theory cannot be relied upon because of presence of a wide

collection of views and thoughts based on scientific truth. The theory is drawn or implemented in a constantly

changing political and social circumstances and it is mostly based on professional consensus on the possible and

relevant facts rather than based on the scientific agreement and consensus on the reality. The theory, in

comparison with formal and rigid procedures and regulations, is regarded as an appropriate approach for

understanding and solving the issues. Presence of different perspectives causes conceptual pluralism, as every

theory merely refers to a specific dimension of the behavior and events in the educational institutions. Ideas and

theories of organizational life are based on the metaphors that help us in better understanding of the

organization through specific but relative ways. Metaphors make it possible to better understand the world

around us. In other words, the participants in the same session may have different interpretation about the

similar events, because they concentrate on specific dimensions of the topic which is according to their

main components of

conflict resolution

system

broad scope

open culture

support structures

open communication

integrated system

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conceptual framework. Thus, the topic can be considered from different perspectives. Most successful managers

are those who are able to understand and change appropriate to the process of transformation and evolution of

the events from different perspectives depending on the suitable criteria.

Educational management theories are normative and prescriptive, since they reflect principles and rules on

educational institutions and behavior of the individuals. For example, when the scholars claim that decisions of

the schools are achievable through a participatory process, in fact it is a kind of prescriptive judgment rather

than a real school performance analysis. Since every theory emphasizes merely on specific aspects of the

organization, thus selection of them is selective and relative. Hence, confirmation of a specific theoretical case

is regarded as ignorance of the other aspects and especially it makes single-dimensional analysis of the schools

as difficult and complicated. The theory should be assessed in practice stage. If the theory is used for

interpretation of practice and guidance on performance of the managers, it would be a useful and valuable.

Theories are useful in performance, since they offer novel approaches depending the different conditions and

situations. Such new insight was formed with emphasis on possible relationships, which might not be

discovered by the scientists, within experimental research works. However, if the purpose id better

understanding, the gap between theory and practice is significantly reduced. Thus, the theory cannot be denied

with such justification that it is inappropriate in some cases.

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